What is ‘White Nationalism’? A Reply to Dean Malik

Jared Taylor, American Thinker, July 31, 2011

Jared Taylor corrects some misconceptions.

A July 11 American Thinker essay by Dean Malik criticizing white nationalism provoked a brisk debate in these pages that involved Jack Kerwick, Jerry Woodruff, and again Mr. Malik, as well as Vdare.com. I have been both praised and criticized in these exchanges, so I am grateful for an opportunity to speak for myself.

Mr. Malik promotes a multi-racial version of “American exceptionalism,” which leads him to denounce what he calls “white nationalism.” I believe he misunderstands both terms. Mr. Malik seems to think the Founders wanted to “escape from tribal loyalties,” that they anticipated today’s race-can-be-made-not-to-matter egalitarianism and dreamed of a land in which all races and nationalities would mingle. He is mistaken.

Until just a few decades ago, white Americans generally believed race was a fundamental aspect of individual and group identity. They believed people of different races had different temperaments and abilities and built different kinds of societies. They thought that only people of European stock would maintain the civilization they cherished. They therefore opposed non-white immigration, and many considered the presence of non-whites–blacks, especially–to be a burden. They strongly opposed miscegenation. For several hundred years, American social policy reflected a consensus on race that is the very opposite of today’s orthodoxy.

Let us take just a few specifics. After the Constitution was ratified in 1788, Americans had to decide who would be allowed to become part of their new country. The very first citizenship law, passed in 1790, specified that only “free white persons” could be naturalized, [i] and immigration laws designed to keep the country overwhelmingly white were repealed only in 1965. We can be certain that those laws would not have been repealed if it had been known that non-white immigration would reduce whites to a minority in less than 80 years.

Of the founders, Jefferson wrote at greatest length about race. He suspected that blacks were less intelligent than whites, and though he hoped slavery would be abolished, he also wanted free blacks to leave the country and be “removed beyond the reach of mixture.” [ii]

Jefferson also believed that the United States was to be “the nest from which all America, North and South, is to be peopled”[iii] and that the population of the hemisphere was to be entirely European: ” . . .nor can we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that surface.”[iv] Jefferson was, of course, among the nine of the first 11 presidents who owned slaves, the only exceptions being the two Adamses.

James Madison likewise believed that the only solution to the race problem was to free the slaves and send them away. He proposed that the federal government buy the entire slave population and transport it overseas. After two terms in office, Madison served as chief executive of the American Colonization Society, which was established to repatriate blacks.[v]

The following prominent Americans were not just members, but served as officers of the society: Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, William Seward, Francis Scott Key, Winfield Scott, John Marshall, and Roger Taney.[vi] James Monroe worked so tirelessly in the cause of “colonization” that the capital of Liberia is named Monrovia in recognition of his efforts.

In 1787, in the second of The Federalist Papers, John Jay wrote what must be one of the most powerful anti-diversity statements in American history. He gave thanks that “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs[.]”[vii]

Alexander Hamilton was likewise suspicious even of European immigrants, writing that “the influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities.[viii] John Quincy Adams explained to a German nobleman that if Europeans were to immigrate, “they must cast off the European skin, never to resume it.”[ix]

As for Asians, state and federal laws excluded them from citizenship, and as late as 1914 the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship could be denied to foreign-born Asians.[x] The ban on Chinese immigration and naturalization continued until 1943, when Congress established a Chinese immigration quota–of 105 people a year.[xi]

American Indians, of course, were forcibly driven onto reservations and did not receive citizenship under the 14th Amendment that granted it to freed slaves. Congress gave Indians on tribal lands citizenship only in 1924.[xii]

The history of the franchise does not reflect an early yearning to “escape from tribal loyalties.” Every state that entered the Union between 1819 and the Civil War denied blacks the vote.[xiii] In 1855, blacks could vote only in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island, which together accounted for only 4 percent of the nation’s black population, and the federal government prohibited free blacks from voting in the territories it controlled.[xiv]

Nor was the movement to free the slaves an early expression of a desire to disregard race. The vast majority of Americans, including Abraham Lincoln, favored abolition only if it led to colonization. William Lloyd Garrison and Angelina and Sarah Grimké were exceptions. The majority view was that of Henry Ward Beecher, brother of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who wrote, “Do your duty first to the colored people here; educate them[,] Christianize them, and then colonize them.”[xv]

Of the 50 states, no fewer than 44 at some point prohibited interracial marriage.[xvi] Massachusetts repealed its century-old anti-miscegenation law in 1843 only because most people thought it no longer necessary. As the new law noted, interracial relations were “evidence of vicious feeling, bad taste, and personal degradation,” so were unlikely to become a problem.[xvii]

I could continue with a virtually endless list of shockingly harsh quotations about non-whites from prominent Americans of the past, but I believe what I have already written is enough to suggest that whatever “American exceptionalism” may mean to Mr. Malik, neither the Founders nor the generations that followed them had the slightest desire to establish a haven for people of all races.

What does this have to do with “white nationalism?” First, as Jerry Woodruff pointed out, there is no agreement on what that term means. Whites who do not accept the current–and, I might add, very recent–orthodoxy on race have been called many things, but the reason there is no agreed-upon name for them is that they are expressing views that were so taken for granted by earlier generations of Americans that there was noneed for a name.

People care more for their own children than for the children of strangers, so we have no word to describe such people. We can imagine a nightmare government that ordered that all children be reared in common and that forbade favoritism. Only then would we need a word to describe dissidents who wanted to rear their own children. Americans who have a traditional view of race find themselves in the same situation: without a name for themselves because historically there was never a need for one.

Does it make sense to call Woodrow Wilson, for example, a “white nationalist”? If not, what about whites who today hold views similar to his on race? These would include: (1) A preference for thecompany of whites. (2) A desire to live in a white-majority country. (3) A love of Western civilization and the belief that only the biological heirs of those who created it will carry it forward in a meaningful way. (4) A desire that their descendants be white and that American whites remain a distinctive people with a distinctive culture forever.

I would note that such views are considered scandalous only when expressed by Gentile whites. Israelis want their country to stay Jewish for precisely those reasons. The Japanese want their country to stay Japanese. Mexicans do not want to be reduced to a minority by foreigners. Like the Israelis and Japanese and Mexicans, we want to be left alone to let our destiny unfold, free from the embrace of those whose presence, in large numbers, will divert that destiny. We are in earnest about our survival.

On one point, therefore, Mr. Malik is correct. Those of us with a white identity have little affection for a government that practices an immigration policy that will reduce us to a minority, and shamelessly discriminates against us under the name of “affirmative action.” Just as French patriots could not support a wartime government that cooperated with German occupation, we cannot support a government that encourages occupation of the United States by strangers.

Those whom Mr. Malik calls “white nationalists” harken back to traditional American convictions. Though we may regret some of our ancestors’ actions, we find much wisdom in their views, and we share their vision of America as a nation of people with common values, culture, and heritage. When Mr. Malik denounces us he is therefore rejecting America from colonial times until perhaps the middle of the 20th century. He is free to do so, of course, but he should refrain from claiming that his multi-culti, anything-goes America is somehow more authentic than ours.

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About Jared Taylor

Jared Taylor is the editor of American Renaissance and the author of White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century.

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29 Responses to “What is ‘White Nationalism’? A Reply to Dean Malik”
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Jefferson also believed that the United States was to be “the nest from which all America, North and South, is to be peopled”[iii] and that the population of the hemisphere was to be entirely European: ” … nor can we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that surface.”[iv] Jefferson was, of course, among the nine of the first 11 presidents who owned slaves, the only exceptions being the two Adamses.

James Madison likewise believed that the only solution to the race problem was to free the slaves and send them away. He proposed that the federal government buy the entire slave population and transport it overseas. After two terms in office, Madison served as chief executive of the American Colonization Society, which was established to repatriate blacks.[v]

The following prominent Americans were not just members, but served as officers of the society: Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, William Seward, Francis Scott Key, Winfield Scott, John Marshall, and Roger Taney.[vi] James Monroe worked so tirelessly in the cause of “colonization” that the capital of Liberia is named Monrovia in recognition of his efforts.

In 1787, in the second of The Federalist Papers, John Jay wrote what must be one of the most powerful anti-diversity statements in American history. He gave thanks that “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs[.]”[vii]

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Isn’t it odd how the Republicans NEVER ever mention this? Isn’t it odd that so-called constitutional experts, like Mark Levin, NEVER talks about this? Isn’t it odd how ALL neocon talk show hosts and Fox news never talk about it? Isn’t it odd how they just love Abe Lincoln, yet never mention that he wanted ALL black slaves sent back to Africa? Even ole Abe did not want America to become a multicult hell.

We know the democrats never will mention these facts, but aren’t the Republicans, the ones who claim to be the super patriots and the great defenders of our Founders, Federalist Papers and the Constitution? Can’t they READ?

What about all these so-called Christian churches and pastors? Don’t they pretend to support our Constitution and the Founders?

Obviously I agree, but I highly doubt Mr. Malik will change his mind for these words. That arrogant subcontinental believes the falsehoods about American history that he does and will always believe them even if he knows they’re false because he directly benefits from the ruling class adopting these falsehoods as revisionist truths. If “we” never bought into the multiracial melting pot reading of “American exceptionalism,” Mr. Malik would still be back in Pakistan with all its niceties. Why would he ever adopt our way of thinking?

Or, to turn the old saying on its head, why should he tell the truth when a lie is handier?

Kudos to American Thinker for running this. There should be some interesting debate on the original story.

Of course Dean Malik’s original argument was one of necessity rather than reality, since the claim that the “true nature” of America is to be “inclusive” is the only argument that’s permitted these days, unless it’s to mercilessly bash the US for being inherently “racist.” The idea that America could be inherently pro-white and that that’s a good thing is unthinkable these days.

Why weren’t the Founders specific enough to write that America was only for eg: English, British, North European, Western, White, Caucasian or Germanic stock or whatever? Why refer to vague terms like ‘one people’ or ‘same ancestry’ or whatever? Can anybody explain?

“Does it make sense to call Woodrow Wilson, for example, a “white nationalist”? If not, what about whites who today hold views similar to his on race? These would include: (1) A preference for the company of whites. (2) A desire to live in a white-majority country. (3) A love of Western civilization and the belief that only the biological heirs of those who created it will carry it forward in a meaningful way. (4) A desire that their descendants be white and that American whites remain a distinctive people with a distinctive culture forever.”

May I suggest “Wilsonian” as a word to describe Whites who hold such views? It’s accurate and will give multicults pause to consider when we point out how this man, beloved by many on the left, really felt about race.

A superb summing-up of what so many of our Founding Fathers and those who followed them believed about race, and also of what it means circa 2011 to be a “White nationalist,” “race realist,” or whatever we choose to call ourselves.

In this era of name-calling, sarcasm and vitriol, Jared Taylor always manages to remain a gentleman at all times, while telling truths that make the liberal establishment both nervous and angry. Good for you, Mr. Taylor! Keep up the good work! Hope sales of your book are booming!

I believe what I have already written is enough to suggest that whatever “American exceptionalism” may mean to Mr. Malik, neither the Founders nor the generations that followed them had the slightest desire to establish a haven for people of all races.

Mr. Taylor does not explore the origin of the current anti-white dogma:

* All people have the same biological potential for accomplishment and no culture is better than any other. (Boasian anthropology).

*The desire to create a classless society in which there will be no conflicts of interest and people will altruistically work for the common good (Marxism).

* America as a multicultural paradise in which different racial and ethnic groups live in harmony and cooperation (the Frankfurt School).

*The desire to transform other societies into democracies, to wage war to remake other societies in our image (neoconservatism).

These are not the tenants of the US Constitution, certainly not the designs of the Founding Fathers.

Where and how did this wrong turn begin? The founders had no intention of flooding the country they created with burdensome, non white, Third World colonists and desire that their own descendants, the “posterity” this country was set up to benefit, white Americans, become a hated minority slated for destruction.

At what point did it become in the best interest of the United States government to declare war on white Americans? To grant special rights and privileges to non-whites over whites while whites are widely debased, reviled and stripped of their freedoms?

Does the current US government represent and serve the interests of white Americans or is it working toward the destruction of whites? What is the point and purpose of this virulent anti-white hatred? Why is it directed specifically at whites? What explains the culture of white Western suicide?

These are the questions I’d like to see answered here.

I would put forth that an anti-white, hostile elite “marched through the institutions”, pushed aside the founding population and conquered each one in turn; the media, the US government and academic institutions, put themselves into positions of supreme power and set in place a PC Reign of Terror aimed ONLY at the white population of the US.

I also maintain THE primary goal of these hostile elites is the elimination of white Americans and Western Civilization as they work to implement a NWO with whites as modern kulaks, good for nothing except extermination.

How can we fight this if we don’t know WHO we are fighting? Ask Cui Bono? Who benefits. There you’ll find the answers.

Today I was reading the book written by Col Mosby of his civil war experiences and he asked then President Grant that if Grant had been born in the South would he have fought for the south in the civil war. Grant said “Certainly”. Lately people especially of color have present the Union army as motivated by slavery and as a sort of avenging group of Angels. Grants comments present things in a different light in that people add a loyalty to the local community that motivated them to fight in their respective armies. Grant obviously was not motivated by slavery to fight the civil war. Too often whites have killed whites over the centuries. We must unite as a people to prevent our being wiped out.

Normally, all groups possess ethnocentric preferences. Until recently, this has been recognized and has gone unquestioned. Now, the vocal far-left, who purports to represent Western conventional wisdom, has declared that white self-interest is wrong. If any political group proclaimed that black self-interest is wrong, such a group would be condemned as promoting genocide–which is exactly what anti-white factions are doing. Since most of these people are white themselves, they are obviously self-haters who want to destroy their own culture and civilization. Thus, nilhism has become the driving force of the white elite.

“Whites who do not accept the current—and, I might add, very recent—orthodoxy on race have been called many things, but the reason there is no agreed-upon name for them is that they are expressing views that were so taken for granted by earlier generations of Americans that there was no need for a name”.

There may be an ‘unconscious white supremacy idea’ (among many ideas) out there, one that’s reinforced every time a Nigerian telemarketer is paid to send out a scam e-mail. . . but this race-consciousness Mr. Taylor attributes to the past is an entirely new thing. Whites have not yet begun to be race conscious.

I would put forth that an anti-white, hostile elite “marched through the institutions”, pushed aside the founding population and conquered each one in turn; the media, the US government and academic institutions, put themselves into positions of supreme power and set in place a PC Reign of Terror aimed ONLY at the white population of the US.

I also maintain THE primary goal of these hostile elites is the elimination of white Americans and Western Civilization as they work to implement a NWO with whites as modern kulaks, good for nothing except extermination.

How can we fight this if we don’t know WHO we are fighting? Ask Cui Bono? Who benefits. There you’ll find the answers.

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Many know that answer, but are too afraid to identify our enemy since they control nothing in this country any longer, including the media, academia, politics, etc.

8 — rockman wrote at 1:54 AM on August 2:

Too often whites have killed whites over the centuries. We must unite as a people to prevent our being wiped out.

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So true. I have always wondered the why and who was behind this genocide of Whites killing Whites. This is why the propaganda (the reasons) that we have been taught (history) about the Civil War and WW1 and WW11 in Europe leaves me to believe that there were unseen forces behind it all to further wipe out White men, women and children and to keep future Whites from ever being born. We would have millions upon millions or billions more Whites in the world if not for these 3 wars alone. It sure wasn’t an accident, it was by design.

Now we have our White soldiers fighting wars and dying FOR nonwhites ever since the 50’s. By design, of course.

Nice work, Mr. Taylor. I hope I get to meet you some day. I really appreciate your honesty and intelligence – two commodities starkly absent from the vast majority of contemporary commentators.

I SO agree with the early Americans!!! Thomas Jefferson in particular is my hero. I do believe that if we had listened to Lincoln and the others who wanted to send ALL the African slaves back to Africa after the War of Northern Aggression, we would be MUCH better off today. This myth of the integrated American society that is perpetrated by all the folks who produce TV commercials (you see blacks and whites socializing freely in those) gives the unfortunate impression that it really is this way in America. It isn’t. The races do not socialize with each other. In places like Atlanta, when you go into a public cafeteria you find all the blacks on one side of the room and all the whites on the other. That is segregation by CHOICE, not mandate. And, the fact is, we DO choose segregation by race when given the opportunity. It is natural to all of us. The liberal idiots are trying to force everyone to go against Nature, and it is not working. The price will be paid some day.

I thought the best sentence/concept in Mr.Taylors article was the last one. I liked how he used the concept of “authenticity”. What is more authentic, he essentially asks, the traditional European-American created America,and all that implies, or the “anything goes” America of today?

Just as it is ridiculous to hold men 100 years ago to the standards of today, so is it equally ridiculous to apply everything that Jefferson ever said, Washington ever said to today, even while, at the same time admiring such men.

Washington and Jefferson would likely have been appalled about women in the workplace, a woman president. Many Americans of two centuries ago, even one century ago would hardly have accepted Irish as acceptable immigrants, much less Jews.

It was only in the 1920s that immigration restrictions were implemented – mainly because of fear of too much southern European migration.

I would guess that many of Taylor’s social views (not that I am sure what these are exactly) would not be acceptable to those of the founding fathers. Does that mean they are not authentically American?

If the Japanese invasion of China and SE Asia had succeeded and they proceeded to colonise those places, then of course they would expect to have to live among non-Japanese.

However the Japanese empire failed. The Japanese by and large live in Japan.

If whites in the Americas, and Australasia went home to Europe, then perhaps yes, they would have the moral authority to follow the Japanese example.

Even then the Japanese place a lot of emphasis on ancestry. Not race. There is a difference.

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What hogwash!

Why should Whites go back to Europe? Whites FOUNDED and built this nation for WHITES. The Indians, nor any other race, FOUNDED and BUILT America. We have every MORAL authority to keep this land! It would be immoral not to!

BTW, the Japanese DO emphasis their own RACE over their so-called “ancestry”. Ask the average Japanese.

Just as it is ridiculous to hold men 100 years ago to the standards of today, so is it equally ridiculous to apply everything that Jefferson ever said, Washington ever said to today, even while, at the same time admiring such men.

Washington and Jefferson would likely have been appalled about women in the workplace, a woman president. Many Americans of two centuries ago, even one century ago would hardly have accepted Irish as acceptable immigrants, much less Jews.

It was only in the 1920s that immigration restrictions were implemented – mainly because of fear of too much southern European migration.

I would guess that many of Taylor’s social views (not that I am sure what these are exactly) would not be acceptable to those of the founding fathers. Does that mean they are not authentically American?

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Come on! Here you go again….The FOUNDERS were a lot smarter than you think you are. Their social views were right on target! If that means you shouldn’t be here, then so be it. Tough!

Whites perhaps can justify that all the Americas only belong to whites, only on terms of right of conquest.

But that is hardly a moral justification.

We have every MORAL authority to keep this land!

Well then say if the Chinese ever conquered the US and built a Chinese flavoured polity atop the old US, then Chinese have every right to keep the land?

Anyone read the 14th Amendment? There is no reference to race whatsoever there. That was in 1868, a a very long time ago. It was enacted by Americans. In fact, in the declaration of independence, the constitution, the amendments to the constitution, and the ideals encapsulated therein, there is far more evidence to support the fact that US citizenship should not be race based, notwithstanding the private prejudices of those men who wrote the same documents.

BTW, the Japanese DO emphasis their own RACE over their so-called “ancestry”. Ask the average Japanese.

Their policies do not talk of race. They like Italy, Germany until very recently, and other European countries speak of ‘ancestry’.

In the third year of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson pleaded “to let our settlements and theirs [Indians] meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people.” Six years later, just before returning to Monticello, Jefferson promised a group of western Indian chiefs, “you will unite yourselves with us,… and we shall all be Americans; you will mix with us by marriage, your blood will run in our veins, and will spread with us over this great island.”

Basically it seems mestizos would have been quite acceptable to Mr Jefferson. Obviously this should have some bearing on current attitudes towards our largest immigrant group – right? Because Jefferson said so. Right?

BTW, the Japanese DO emphasis their own RACE over their so-called “ancestry”.

Absurd again. If the Japanese think of themselves as a unique race, (as the Tibetans do), then yes, they do have some right to be worried about their future as a unique Japanese race, because there are only about 130 million of them in the world.

But if we speak of the white race, then there are 1.2 billion whites in the world. So I don’t know what Taylor is on about.

His race, his nation, whites, as defined by him are numerically by him are second only to the Chinese in numbers.

Let our settlements and theirs meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people…

Posted in Excerpts, History on 2011-07-12 02:31Z by Steven

In the third year of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson pleaded “to let our settlements and theirs [Indians] meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people.” Six years later, just before returning to Monticello, Jefferson promised a 25 — Wayne wrote at 8:09 PM on August 3:

It seems Jefferson was not entirely averse to race mixing:

In the third year of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson pleaded “to let our settlements and theirs [Indians] meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people.” Six years later, just before returning to Monticello, Jefferson promised a group of western Indian chiefs, “you will unite yourselves with us,… and we shall all be Americans; you will mix with us by marriage, your blood will run in our veins, and will spread with us over this great island.”

Basically it seems mestizos would have been quite acceptable to Mr Jefferson. Obviously this should have some bearing on current attitudes towards our largest immigrant group – right? Because Jefferson said so. Right?group of western Indian chiefs, “you will unite yourselves with us,… and we shall all be Americans; you will mix with us by marriage, your blood will run in our veins, and will spread with us over this great island.”5

Michael Scheuer said that “Israel does not have a right to exist, it has a right to defend itself”.

Correct and to the point. Every nation in history has been fought over by competing ethnic entities. The USA, in a strange twist of history, is now fighting that battle, even though it was never invaded during the last century’s great blood lettings. Perverse as it seems, the USA state apparatus is now administering defeats on its own people, as if somehow the people of this country have let the government down. Doesn’t the immigration crisis seem more a purge of the white people of the country rather than a self-centered search for qualified newcomers to assist in economic growth?

It does to me. I also would like to say that I don’t actually buy into the idea that immigration is necessary for economic growth, but I mentioned it because even that is at least a reason that can be scrutinized. The purge aspect of recent policy is so irrational I have to assume it is an idealogically-based Communist tactic.

He finds much wisdom in their views doesn’t mean he agree with everything. He goes on to say, “…and we share their vision of America as a nation of people with common values, culture, and heritage.” Meaning he shares the same visions (or ideals) when it comes to a people with common, values, culture and heritage. He never defined what that common culture and heritage actually is in detail.

“If whites in the Americas, and Australasia went home to Europe, then perhaps yes, they would have the moral authority to follow the Japanese example.”

They Japanese lost the was and in doing so had to recede back to Japan. The US won the war. The US doesn’t have to do anything.

“Well then say if the Chinese ever conquered the US and built a Chinese flavoured polity atop the old US, then Chinese have every right to keep the land?”

Well it may be news to you, but that is how it generally has worked since the dawn of humanity. The person who wins the war gets to do what he pleases. Hard to break it to you. That is why wars are fought…to contest land, resources, etc.

So yes, the Chinese, IF they took over the US has the “right” to keep the land…until someone else contest it.